THE WOMEN OF COURTWATCH: REFORMING A CORRUPT FAMILY COURT SYSTEM
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THE WOMEN OF COURTWATCH: REFORMING A CORRUPT FAMILY COURT SYSTEM
by Carole Bell Ford
Reviewed by Rosalie R. Young, Public Justice Department, State University of New York at Oswego.
Email: ryoung [at] Oswego.edu.
Carole Bell Ford, Professor Emerita of Education and Women’s Studies at SUNY Empire State College, has used interviews and news reports to write an intriguing volume depicting the grass roots battle of a small group of women in Harris County, Texas (Houston) to reform a dysfunctional family court system. Between the spring of 1993 and the elections in November of 1994, their CourtWatch protests, educational efforts, and political activity resulted in the election of new judges, many of whom demonstrated a real interest in both family court and the litigants’ needs.
This very readable book offers undergraduate students, law students, established lawyers and the general public the opportunity to examine the struggles of clients who used the Harris County Family Court, the lawyers who represented them, the judges who sat on the bench and the hazards caused by a political system which selects the judicial candidates. Along the way, Ford describes the gender biases in Harris County Family Court and the prejudices that have plagued female lawyers.
For at least a decade prior to CourtWatch, there were complaints that a “good old boys” network of lawyers and judges resulted in favorable decisions for clients whose lawyers were members of the network. Lawyers with pending cases were asked to make contributions to judicial election campaigns, and claims of racism, sexism, corruption, fraud, and incompetence were voiced. Mothers claimed that custody of their children was awarded to fathers charged with abuse. Divorce decisions in Harris County favored the wealthy and powerful, and those whose lawyers were friends of the judges.
Further, the Harris County Family Court resisted innovations. Even though the Texas legislature passed a law recommending mediation in cases involving children and parents, several judges refused to make referrals to mediation. In addition, the court ignored a 1989 law requiring that judges get training in family violence.
In her description of the CourtWatch effort, Ford offers the reader an understanding of the social and economic backgrounds of the primary participants. She focuses on the movement of Florence Kusnetz, a former family court lawyer, from her Brownsville, New York Jewish roots, through her many moves in response to her husband’s career and her entrance into college and law school as a mature woman. Kusnetz’s efforts were often denigrated due to her age and gender. Ford describes in some detail the gender and ethical conflicts Kusnetz encountered in law school and in her [*529] practice, which were reflected in the attitudes and actions of the Harris County Family Court judges. To a lesser extent, Ford describes other participants and their goals and experiences prior to, during, and following the CourtWatch era.
Ford includes descriptions of mediation and collaborative law, representing efforts to promote settlement of family court issues, rather than leaving the responsibility to the courts and judicial decision makers. She describes the broad discretion of judges, which in the wrong hands, as in Harris County, can result in biased and even dangerous child custody decisions.
The CourtWatch committee became a political action committee (PAC), whose goal became removing five of the nine Family Court judges through the electoral process. They enlisted an inactive advisory board of prominent people who were willing to lend their names to the CourtWatch effort, a brave action in Harris County. Two hundred fund raisers then set about earning the dollars needed, recognizing that although the money provided necessary assets, the donors were also indicating support for CourtWatch activities.
Ford describes CourtWatch’s victories and setbacks, beginning with the decision by four of the five targeted judges not to run for reelection. Eventually there were eight open seats, and seven of eight CourtWatch candidates won in the primaries. While all their nominees did not win judicial seats, seven new judges were elected.
The latter third of the book describes Harris County Family Court after the CourtWatch effort. Politics and partisan elections remain. Though most feel the family court situation is much improved, there were no minorities or Democrats on the bench as the book concluded. Kusnetz feels that family court remains a negative experience for divorcing families, although as Ford describes, reforms and alternatives are currently being promoted.
In six appendices, Ford offers additional information on gender issues, children’s advocacy groups, mediation, CourtWatch and case histories, demonstrating the problems inherent in family dissolution.
This engaging volume offers a variety of benefits to the potential reader. It reinforces an understanding of the way many of our courts function and the biases inherent in our system. Equally as important, this readable volume demonstrates both the victories and frustrations of a grassroots effort, an endeavor that achieved reform because of a determined group of women and their supporters.
THE WOMEN OF COURTWATCH can serve as a welcome addition to undergraduate family law classes and should be considered by those teaching both social movements and judicial process. Ford’s volume can be profitably added to a law school course on family law to demonstrate the impact of family courts on communities.
A Call to Men
Custody Preparation for Moms
http://www.afterthetrauma.org/
National Family Court Watch Project
PROTECT
WATCH
Please join us in MOTHERS WHO WANT OUR CHILDREN BACK… friend me and i will find you..
AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN… THEY TAKE OUR BABIES FROM US, PUT THEM IN HARMS WAY, ACCUSE US OF CRIMES WE DID NOT COMMIT AND LEAVE US WITH NO RECOURSE IN ANY COURT OF LAW ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD, TO GET OUR CHILDREN BACK.
THEY HAVE NO REGARD FOR THE HAPPINESS, WELL-BEING AND LIVES OR OUR PRECIOUS BABIES. THEY LOSE THEM, ABUSE THEM, MOLEST THEM, RAPE THEM AND KILL THEM AND BLAME US FOR FAILURE TO PROTECT, AFTER THEY HAVE DESTROYED OUR MOTHERHOODS AND OUR BABIES CHILDHOODS, THEY LEAVE US DESTITUTE, WITH NOTHING, AND NO HOPE FOR A FUTURE WITH OUT CHILDREN. WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?
CPS AND SOCIAL SERVICES AND CORRUPT FAMILY COURT ARE ALL INVOLVED IN THIS CHILD TRAFFICKING WORLD-WIDE, OBSCENE GRANDE CONSPIRACY OF ORGANIZED CRIME, WHICH STEALS AND SELLS OUR CHILDREN, AND ARE PAID TO BOTH TAKE THEM, AND PLACE THEM IN FOSTER CARE OR ADOPTIVE HOMES, USING GOVERNMENT DOLLARS FROM OUR TAXES!
The money trail is there. In every country, it comes from the people, for the people, and it is used against the people. The government arm which reaches out and snatches our children as we walk casually by, is financed by the people themselves, and is a vicious cycle beginning with money for juvenile support and children’s services. The way that it has become imbalanced leaves the youth at risk and the children being stolen from good parents for money and with the power held by this organization, even over judges and law enforcement, it is a criminal activity, legalized by government prostitutes caught up in their own profit from this conspiracy.
What we don’t know, is WHO IS RUNNING THE SHOW? WHO IS PUSHING ON THE WORKERS TO STEAL MORE CHILDREN???
This is not just a process out of control and random people all deciding to make money… this is organized crime, as there ever was any organized crime, and whomever is in charge of it needs to be identified and removed from power. AND if it IS several, or several hundred, or several thousand people who are involved in this highly profitable money-making scheme, using OUR CHILDREN AS THEIR PRODUCT – then they all need to BE REMOVED! none of them need to remain in their positions of authority, judgement or power. The money needs to be frozen and re-authorized for mothers and children who have been devastated by the disruption of their lives by these evil, power forces of government parasites.
There is a beginning, and an end to everything. This needs to be the end of this. AND THE BEGINNING OF A SYSTEM OF FAMILY SERVICES RUN BY MOTHERS WHO ARE PAID WELL TO RUN THIS SOCIAL SYSTEM FOR MOTHERS, AND WHO ARE ALLOWED TO SET THEIR OWN SCHEDULES AND THEIR OWN HOURS AND WILL BE PAID FOR BEING MOTHERS AS WELL AS FOR THEIR TIME WORKING FOR THIS SERVICE… there are a million things mothers can do, fighting for our children should not be one of them. BUT, WE KNOW WHAT MOTHERS NEED, AND WE WOULD DEFINITELY RUN SOCIAL SERVICES AND CPS BETTER THAN WHOEVER IS RUNNING IT RIGHT NOW, AND THOSE WHO SHOULD BENEFIT, MOTHERS AND CHILDREN, WILL BE BENEFITING WORLDWIDE, LIKE THEY SHOULD!
We are asking everyone, worldwide to join us, worldwide, to PUT A STOP TO THE KIDNAPPING AND CHILD TRAFFICKING OF OUR CHILDREN, NOW, and support our demands to have our children returned by SOCIAL SERVICES WORLDWIDE whether they have been in foster care, adopted out, medicated or incarcerated – IF WE COME FORWARD FOR OUR CHILDREN, THEY SHALL BE RETURNED! no questions, no arguments. give them back. If they are two weeks old, or two months old or two, or six, or twelve, or fifteen!!! give them back to us now! and we will negotiate the rest tomorrow.
THIS IS WRONG, AND IT IS A CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY, AND IT NEEDS TO STOP NOW!!!.
I too have been raped by family court. Many women discount me in the community because I do not have children, my pain could not be so bad. The issue is not if you have children or don’t the psychopath ex will use any means to hurt you after you have gone.
I hope this site will also reach out to men who have experienced divorce from a psychopath. i use the term psychopath collectively to include, narcissists, boderline, obsessive compulsive,etc. those high functioning individuals who have not been officially diagnosed with a personality disorder.
So many who have left these disordered individuals want to believe in the delusion that you are free and they will leave you alone. This is not reality. They will use any means available to them to continue to cause harm. If you have children with them, then you are an easier target. What is sad is that they have so many allies in other people who jump on the band wagon and do evil acts with them.
We are doomed in family court. It is not a court of equity where there is a jury who will debate the facts, it is one judge who will not bother with the facts of the case or learning about personality disorders. The child has no voice, the woman has no voice. Your attorney has an obligation only to the court, the bar, the state. You are being put into another abusive situation when you hire an attorney and enter this system. the abusive system knows how to shut you up, take your kids, hurt you.
Where are the authorities to assist, in bed with the judges, attorneys, etc. This is planned. A way to transfer wealth and power.
In 2005, my grandchild, S., at nine years old confided in her mother that her father had been touching her inappropriately. My daughter, a nurse by profession, alerted the proper authorities, which included the Dorchester County Sheriff’s office and the Child Protective Services in South Carolina.
S. was interviewed by the police and a forensic specialists. They believed she had indeed suffered molestation from her father. The DSS (State Child Protective Office) part of the Health Department, initiated a “No visitation from the father”. An investigation was undertaken by that office.
After many hearings and spending $1,000′s of dollars on lawyers, S. has been through hell and back and so has my daughter. The DSS and the courts at first worked together, but slowly, once a therapist got on board with the father’s lawyer, the case was lost.
The first Judge McMahan ruled that it was just insensitivity on S.’s part toward what her father put her through. He ruled that S. who had been on the stand for a total of 9 hours, with the father staring her down the whole time, was just not credible. Goes downhill from there.
In 2010, a Judge in Kingstree, SC ruled that Sarah was to be removed from her home with her mother and placed in foster care to be under a therapist and no contact with her mother or the family during the whole time. They stated that it would be 6 months to a year and depended on S’s and my daughter’s cooperation in reuniting her with the father. By the way, the father is studying to be a Jewish Rabbi in Israel. S. ended up staying there for a year and now is after more hearings living in Israel with the very father she stated molested her. Now, can anyone explain how this could possibly be so twisted? Now my daughter is being threathened with jail and her wages are being taken for child support to Israel. Also, the father had his own Jewish lawyer whom he only paid $500 to for a period of over 6 years and still he uses him for harrassing my daugher. Not only are the family court judges corrupt as they make decisions before they even have a hearing, but the Jewish Synagogue is involved with protecting a child molestor.
Trust me when you have no money to fight these corrupt people, no one is there to help either. They have the power to destroy a family and will do it without a thought.
No Rebecca you are not alone. This was just a very short version of this nightmare.
almost 5 yrs. ago the police asked in pawtucket rhode island surronded my house with guns and told me to give them my precious 4 yr. old son oliver and my weapons. I had no weapons what were they talking about? then i saw him he stood across the street my former husband Craig McLaughlin who told me that morning there would consequences for my behavior – oh my god not my son no not my son. he took my son with the help of his sister who is one of the state of rhode island’s lawyer for mental health Patricia Hessler – they both warned me for yrs. if i told the federal government on them they would take my child. how could they do that? i am healthy a therapist and teach in several New England Colleges and universities. they did and it is almost 5 yrs. later. I am a walking dead woman most of the time – my son too on some level. this past week he told me he wanted to assinate his father – I of course told him he could not do that and why would he want to do that to his daddy? his said to me do you think I don’t know what has been going on for the past 4 1/2 yrs. he is only 9 yrs. old is breaks my heart that he thinks that way. i have found nothing i can do to help him except love him every moment we are together which are supervised visits in my home some overnight for the past 41/2 or so years – every monday 5:30 – 8:30PM and Friday from 5:30pm – saturday at 1pm. we do our best. there are no psy evals nor drug tests to support allegations of drugs nor mental illness however i do have ptsd from having my son ripped from me horribly and he from me so he has ptsd as well.
i go back to court this coming monday – sept. 20 – 10 – i am not looking forward to the same old same old. Corruption for sure I am sure. I am writing a book called “the rhode island political war zone once you get in your may never get out.” I try to keep my sense of humour – it is what keeps me alive. i am so grateful for sites like this because I often think I am the only one…but unfortuantely I am not – wish I were because the horror I feel i wish upon no one except my ex husband his sister, his lawyer, and the judge. what kind of animals are they? they can’t be human there is no way. Narcassitic sociopaths.
Rebecca L. McLaughlin (ABD), Ph.D.